Parents, tired of explaining crypto to your friends? Now you'll have the occasion to explain it to your kids.
New startup "Pigzbe" offers a "family-friendly" cryptocurrency that lets six-year-olds start collecting their own crypto tokens.
The company, founded by Forbes 30-under-30 alum Filippo Yacob, promises "to teach children the principles of 21st century finance while enabling families as microfinancing networks to operate globally," according to its whitepaper.
It hopes to achieve this by creating a blockchain-based "decentralized network," in which parents can "reward children and help them practice good financial habits" as they buy and trade tokens called Wollo.
Yeah, we know how this sounds — like the fever dream of a knockoff George Orwell looking to seed children's brains with capitalistic inclinations from the earliest possible age. But then again, there's a lot about today's world that would have seemed pretty dystopian to someone like Orwell. If he knew that we have an always-on, always-connected speaker voluntarily installed in our living rooms, he'd be rolling over in his grave.
If recent trends and developments in the crypto-world are to be believed, crypto is the currency of the future, right? So why not get the kiddos used to the idea when they're still young, right?
For one thing, Wollo is an actual cryptocurrency — Pigzbe is planning an ICO for it and everything, in June. But it's fundamentally different from widespread currencies like Ethereum or Bitcoin because it doesn't have the same kinds of high transaction fees. Instead, Pigzbe holds 30 percent of Wollo tokens, and another 14 percent is "distributed amongst founders and team members," Motherboard reports.
So as people buy up more Wollo tokens (there's a cap of 675 million Wollo tokens, which will set the exchange rate), the richer the Pigzbe guys will become. Right now, they are likely not all that rich from Wollo, though it's pretty much impossible to estimate the value of a single Wollo (unless you're an expert) because it's so new. But, presumably, the value of kids' investment will grow if — IF — Wollo tokens become more valuable.
There's no question that educating children about the future of our economy is a valiant effort. But maybe — just maybe — lining the crypto-wallets of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur as children learn is not the best way to go about this.
A simple piece of educational software that could simulate a public ledger and made-up cryptocurrency could get us there just as well.
Or, like, maybe go old school and just start with a piggy bank? They can worry about crypto when they're older.
Disclosure: Several members of the Futurism team, including the editors of this piece, are personal investors in a number of cryptocurrency markets. Their personal investment perspectives have no impact on editorial content.
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